Things That Need To Pass (passerine!Technoblade x OC) {COMPLETED}

A Show Without Words

(Eryn POV)

I didn't know about...how Toms felt.

Tommy sighed. He felt like his lungs had come loose in all the chaos. Everything in his chest was all too tight, all too sore. He closed his eyes against the pain, seeing his brother in the darkness: brown curls falling over his eyes as he bent over his guitar, smiling at his own music. Tommy would give anything to hear Wilbur play like that again.

"No," Tommy began, rethinking his words even as he was saying them, "being king has nothing to do with it. I guess I mean it was different before... before he started choosing being king over being my big brother."

"Oh, Tommy." The sadness in Techno's voice made Tommy's eyes snap open. "You think he has a choice?" I stilled. What? What in the world did Tech mean by that?

Tommy rolled over to finally look Techno in the eyes. Not much had changed with Techno over the years. He still kept his hair long and occasionally let Tommy braid it. His hands remained as scarred as ever, with some fresh ones now and again from adventures he told no one about, and he still wore shirts with too many ruffles for Tommy's taste. 

But he no longer had the emerald earring he used to wear when they were younger; Tommy couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Techno with it. In its place was the sapphire Tommy had given him two years ago—mostly as a joke, and he'd only admit he was pleased to see Techno wearing it under the threat of death.

Techno's expression was shuttered, in that way of his whenever uncomfortable topics came up. His past. State secrets. Phil.

"Something's really happening," Tommy said, watching Techno's face carefully. "Something bad." No kidding, I thought.

Techno's face remained unchanged, save for the telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth that signaled his anger. Tommy had only seen Techno truly angry a handful of times, and was not eager to add to that list.

"Things are a bit fragile right now," Techno said, "but I'm trying. I really am, and I need you to know that, Tommy." He was? Last time I'd checked, he wasn't all this serious.

"I do," Tommy said resolutely. "I trust you."

Because while Techno and I had stayed when Tommy and Wilbur were at their worst, they'd repaid him in kind. Me, not so much. A few years into Wilbur's reign Techno had taken to studying up on statesmanship and politics and etiquette as if his very life depended on it. I, on the other hand, chatted with Tommy.

It was the only aspect he was lacking in, he'd said, and he needed to cover for Wilbur when push came to shove on the debate floor. And while Tommy and Wilbur couldn't understand his sudden zeal, they still knew that their tutor needed rest as much as any other human being, so they'd developed their own systems of getting Techno to eat and drink, and oftentimes had to physically pry him away from the library. I helped, of course. Wilbur gave me weird looks after that.

Techno eventually relented to calming down after he knocked Wilbur and I to the ground in one of their struggles to get him to bed. 

And when he sometimes disappeared in the middle of the night, or went off to gods-know-where for days on end, they'd simply welcome him back when he was ready, no questions asked—partly because the look on Techno's face after his little escapades implied that whoever asked would be thrown over a balcony. Me included.

"If things are so bad, why're you here, then?" Tommy asked. "Shouldn't you be at the king's side, Sir Right-Hand-Man?"

Techno wrinkled his nose in response. I choked on my laughter.

"Oh." Laughter bubbled out of Tommy, unbidden but welcome. "I see, I see. He kicked you out, too, didn't he?"

"I suggested a solution that would end all of our problems very easily. Wilbur vetoed it. Adamantly." I tried so hard to shove my laughter down that I was red in the face.

Tommy grinned. "So you're throwing a tantrum."

Techno scoffed. "I am not you, Tommy." He paused. "But I suppose under the dictionary definition of a tantrum, I am currently in the middle of one." I coughed silently. There was no way he could hear that.

a/n

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